The Shaking Earth

This play came to be because of a conversation I had with my dear friend, Meetu, about Operation Blue Star, which was the Indian Government's attack on the Golden Temple in June 1984. It became about the transmission of trauma through generations, about seeking refuge and finding that refuge to be it's own kind of prison, about the quiet hero that lives in even the most frightened of us.

When mob violence took over the streets of New Delhi, India, following the assassination of the prime minister, it was said, "when a big tree falls, the earth shakes." Based on the true event of the 1984 anti-Sikh massacres, and told through an intimate lens, this play uncovers the sanctioned violence that took 8,000 lives and the repercussions of that trauma for survivors who fled to the west.

Cast Requirements

(3W, 4M)

Production and Development History

The play has been developed at NYTW, New Dramatists, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Page73, Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU, was a recipient of a TCG Global Connections travel grant and has been nominated for the Weissberger Award.